Jurors view video of ghastly crime scene

Posted: Wednesday, September 01, 1999

By Associated Press

MONROE -- Jury members cried Tuesday as attorneys prosecuting Jerry Scott Heidler presented two videos -- a tour of the blood-soaked Daniels home and an interview with one of the five Daniels children who survived the bloody rampage.

Heidler, 22, is charged in the December 1997 slayings of members of the Danny Daniels family at their home in Santa Claus, a tiny southeast Georgia town normally known for its Christmas festivities.

Heidler is also charged with kidnapping three girls -- ages 8, 9 and 10 -- from the Daniels' home and leaving them 50 miles away on a dirt road. He also is charged with aggravated sodomy and child molestation. Two children in the home were unharmed.

The Daniels, who had been foster parents since 1995, had befriended Heidler. Prosecutors and witnesses said Danny Daniels had become concerned about the attention Heidler was paying to his 16-year-old adopted daughter and told Heidler not to see her.

The hour-long tape of the crime scene showed the family's living room, strewn with plastic toys and piled with presents that spilled from beneath a tinsel-shrouded Christmas tree. A shotgun shell, the first of seven to be recovered in the house, was lying on the couch.

Bryant Daniels' body lay atop a bunk bed in the adjacent bedroom. His blood covered the walls and ceiling, spattering a framed photo of him wearing his red baseball jersey. The blood reached across the room, where paper cutouts of biblical figures were tacked on the wall.

Kim and Danny Daniels' bodies were on their king-size bed in the master bedroom. Jessica Daniels' body was crumpled face-down in front of the bedroom door.

As the tape was played, Kim Daniels' sister, Connie Smith, sat in the front row, her head bowed.

Heidler, who had indicated he didn't want to watch the tape, shook his legs restlessly, and rocked back and forth.

The second video showed a Toombs County welfare worker and a GBI agent interviewing one of three girls whom Heidler is accused of rousing from bed and kidnapping. The girls identified their attacker as Scott Taylor, an alias Heidler used.

The state called 13 witnesses Tuesday and planned to call two more Wednesday before resting its case, according to prosecutor Rick Malone.

Five GBI agents, four GBI forensic scientists, a GBI medical examiner, a police officer and a representative from the Department of Family and Children services testified Tuesday.

The trial was moved to Monroe, about 40 miles east of Atlanta and 130 miles north of Santa Claus, because of pretrial publicity.